Jan 15 07

January 15, 2007

OK, our get away from it all and do nothing day never happened. By the time we finished cleaning the trailer, Maxine Bonito called and asked if Faith and Ariel could come and stay with us while she and David went to get “woods” (that’s how everyone here says it). We had a great day with the 2 girls. They’re very cute. And it turns out David and Maxine got woods for another family in the branch, Byron and Juliet, so it was actually a service project for all of us.

The girls watched “Cars” while we fixed lunch for them. Then we made cookies, and while I finished baking the cookies Robert took them to the church and played some basketball. Then we played “Memory” for a while and tried to watch The Gods Must Be Crazy, but the humor eluded the little girls and they weren’t interested. Ariel kept tickling Robert and waking him up every time he fell asleep. We threatened to give her timeout but she had no idea what it was. Since Robert wasn’t pretend sleeping, but really dozing, I thought he was amazingly patient about the whole thing. Ariel, who is 3, wanted to make cupcakes, but I didn’t have any papers. When she finally left at 9:00 she reminded me to buy papers so we can make cupcakes next time. She’s quite smart, as is Faith, who embarrassed me with her substantial win at “Memory.” Their parents came home about 4:00, but then the whole family came back for dinner. We had a good visit. It was a really fun day.

President Bonito told us his brother was arrested last summer “down in the valley”, which means the Phoenix area. When he was arrested he said he was David Bonito, which is president’s name. Since people here rarely have any form of ID, the police just accepted that and told him to appear for court in July. One day President had to report a break-in at his work. The police came and said, “Since you’re already having a bad day we hate to tell you that there’s a warrant out for your arrest.” Ever since then President has been trying to clear up his record. We told him this is absurd. You can’t have a criminal as a Branch President.

Maxine had had a bad night because she was overcome by an evil spirit during the night. She felt the spirit was trying to crush her, and choke her. Finally she woke President and he gave her a blessing and they felt better. She’s also been very stressed since Byron Ivins was stabbed because her stepbrother is the one who killed him. She and the stepbrother weren’t close, but Byron’s family is blaming Maxine’s whole family and saying they want revenge. They’re saying they want to kill someone in Maxine’s family so that family will suffer as they are suffering. Yes, Christianity is alive and well here on the rez.